


Iamque Opus Exegi (And Now the Work is Done)

by sevensyllables



Series: It Wouldn't Be Make Believe If You Believed In Me [2]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Fallout Kink Meme, M/M, Medical Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 08:55:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5042038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevensyllables/pseuds/sevensyllables
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The requested sequel to my sex pollen fill, <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4942900">Dum Spiro Spero</a>. Arcade had promised the Courier a full checkup when they returned home after Vault 22.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iamque Opus Exegi (And Now the Work is Done)

“Remember in the Vault when I said I wanted to give you ‘a full checkup’ once we got back? That was innuendo,” Arcade grumbled as he half-carried the Courier through the open elevator doors of the presidential suite of the Lucky 38. Boone trailed behind them, carrying the Courier’s bag of gear that Arcade had dropped unceremoniously in the casino lobby. Arcade deposited the Courier on the open chair nearest the sink in the kitchen, the Courier’s head lolling, and began rolling up his sleeves as Boone silently went to grab the medical kit from beside Arcade’s bed in the guest bedroom. “Sex. I wanted to have more sex.”

Boone snorted as he reentered the kitchen. Arcade hardly cared that he’d heard; Boone had already witnessed the Courier deliriously grope Arcade’s ass in the elevator on the way up. This was just partial verbal confirmation of what had already been observed. Besides, it wasn’t as if they had determined to keep their relationship—such that it was—a secret. Boone dumped a few loose stimpaks and bandages onto the table alongside Arcade’s medical bag and smirked at him.

“You good?” Boone asked.

Arcade was sweating through his lab coat, wearing the only set of clothes that he’d had for the better part of a week, damp with cazador guts in uncomfortable places, and facing the prospect of applying several dozen stitches to the Courier who was not in particularly dire straits, but was nonetheless currently drifting in and out of consciousness at a kitchen table of all things. Arcade gestured with both hands at all this, trying to visually encompass the level of ‘not good’ on display. “Oh, of course,” he said. “I’m just peachy.”

“Good,” Boone said simply, exiting the kitchen with a vague salute.

Arcade chose to ignore him, unwilling to waste time and effort on being incredulous, and dug through his bag for an additional dose of antivenom; the Courier had had one immediately after they had dispatched the swarming cazadores, and although his breathing was no longer obstructed and he had ceased sweating excessively, he was still unresponsive enough to cause Arcade concern. He weighed his options silently, turning the antidote over in one hand as he checked the Courier’s pulse with the other. Overdosing on antivenom was just as dangerous as undertreating the toxin.

The Courier groaned slightly, head drooping, and Arcade made his decision. He tipped the vial against the Courier’s lips, cradling his head gently while the other man stared back with misty eyes. Arcade tugged at the Courier’s arm, using the display of his Pip-Boy as a flashlight; when the Courier’s eyes contracted and dilated to his satisfaction, Arcade settled the Courier’s arm back onto his lap and turned to the worn wooden table. He rummaged through his medical kit and pulled out a set of medical sheers, gauze, disinfectant, forceps, a pair of needles, a cotton rag, two doses of Med-X, and thread. He turned on the sink quickly and scrubbed at his hands the best he could, keeping one eye on the semi-conscious Courier slumped in his chair, wishing that Boone had stuck around to give him a drink of water, or at least to make sure he didn’t fall onto the floor.

He could hear Boone speaking down the hallway as he cut cleanly through the Courier’s ragged and bloody t-shirt, from bottom hem to collar, carefully pulling the fabric back from the jagged wounds on his chest. He heard a muffled peal of laughter, probably Cass, but didn’t bother to turn around to investigate.

“Liked that shirt,” the Courier murmured, leaning forward and nearly toppling over before Arcade pressed a steadying hand to his uninjured shoulder.

“I’m sure you’ll be well enough to steal another one just like it off of a corpse someday soon,” Arcade said as he inspected the oozing scratches on his torso. The cazadores had hit him hard, but the main damage done had come from the venom, which was hopefully being suitably counteracted as they spoke. These wounds would not be too difficult to stitch up and should result in little more than a few extra scars on the Courier’s already crisscrossed chest. Small favors, and all that.

“’Course,” the Courier said drowsily, bringing one hand to rest against Arcade’s neck. “You always take care ‘a me, Doc.”

Arcade batted the hand away as gently as he could, bracing one of his own against the Courier’s chest as he applied the antiseptic. The Courier flinched slightly, but did not jerk away; after a few moments of Arcade cleaning his wounds, the sting of the disinfectant seemed to rouse him a bit. He looked at the doorway over Arcade’s shoulder in confusion.

Arcade spared a glance backward to see Cass and Boone poised in the doorway, identical knowing looks on their faces. “Would one of you please get him some water?” he asked, turning away from them as if he wasn’t in the least concerned with their crude delight. He carefully injected the Courier with Med-X to numb the area surrounding the wounds, then turned back to the table to prep the needle and thread.

Cass sauntered over, ducking to wave a hand in the Courier’s face. The Courier blinked back, nodding his head once in vague acknowledgement. Cass pulled a bottle of purified water from the fridge—she threw the plastic cap somewhere in Boone’s direction—and held it to the Courier’s lips. He reached up to take the bottle from her and was able to hold it, but spilled nearly as much down his chin as he managed to get in his mouth.

Cass rested a hand on her hip as she watched Arcade make his first pass with the needle; the Courier’s chest heaved slightly, but he did not struggle or cry out—the Med-X had worked. “Should we get him a stronger drink for the pain in case that stuff wears off?” Cass asked.

“No,” Arcade said quickly, tying off a suture. “Alcohol thins the blood. That just allows poison to work more quickly. The Med-X should last.”

“Hope you two didn’t finally fuck with him doped up like this,” she said. Arcade didn’t have to look at her face to know how wide her grin was.

Arcade gritted his teeth, making two more neat sutures in the smallest cut before he turned to level an unamused glare at Boone who was still lurking in the doorway, chest working in silent laughter. “No,” he repeated as he dabbed the closed wound with more antiseptic. “Well, yes and no.”

Cass just smirked at him expectantly as she took a sip from the Courier’s half-empty bottle of water.

Arcade began to stitch up the largest wound now, a scratch that stretched from below the Courier’s left pectoral in a curved line across his sternum. He sighed. It was better to control the narrative now, he figured, than to have Raul and Cass wheedle the more personal details out of the Courier over whiskey some night.

“The NCR at Camp McCarran sent us to investigate project data that might be found in Vault 22, southwest of the Strip. There we encountered a type of spore that heightened the libido, among other things. We were both dosed with that.” He released a careful breath, and the Courier flinched again, hazy eyes never leaving Arcade’s hands and the sutures. “ _This_ is due to the nest of cazadores we stumbled upon after we had already finished with the Vault. There was a bootlegger’s shack nearby that the Courier just had to investigate. They swarmed us as soon as we left. He got the worst of it, obviously.”

Cass snorted derisively, “Gannon, you are far too clever to sit there and tell me that it took some plant for you two to stick your hands down each other’s pants.”

Arcade could feel sweat beading on his head as he worked, fifteen sutures so far for this largest cut. “Would you like to help, perhaps? At all?” He gestured with the forceps.

Cass and Boone exchanged a look. “Nah, we’re good here,” she said, offering a sip to the Courier before taking another swig for herself.

Boone walked over and leaned against the back of a chair to Arcade’s left. “Tell me if you need help holding him down.”

Arcade glared at the Courier’s chest for good measure as he swabbed at the wound, unwilling to turn around and determine if that was meant to be innuendo or not.

“Ow,” the Courier groaned as Arcade dabbed at the last of the cuts on his chest. “I’m dying, Doc.”

Apparently everyone in the suite was out to get him, the Courier included. “You can’t even feel that. Stop watching. And you’re not dying,” Arcade said as he set about the final round of sutures. “I’ve seen you sustain much worse injuries and race headlong into a fight. It’s the venom that’s causing you trouble. You’re going to feel like that for hours after the antidote works.”

Nevertheless, the Courier groaned, causing Veronica to pop her head in the room. “Oh my god, are you okay? Is he okay?”

“I’m dying.”

“He’s not dying,” Arcade repeated, groping blindly for a bit of gauze that was just out of his reach as he tied the final suture.

The Courier groaned again, louder than Arcade strictly thought necessary given that he had finished the procedure by now.

Veronica rolled her eyes and walked over to the table to hand Arcade the gauze and disinfectant.

“Dying,” the Courier whined again, turning a pitiful look on Veronica.

She leaned closer to examine his stitched-up wounds and promptly punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Quit whining, you big baby. Arcade should have left you outside in the sun. This is practically just a scratch for you; you’ll be fine.”

“Thank you,” Arcade said to Veronica with a polite smile. He leveled a pointed look at Cass and Boone as he stood up and wiped at his hands. Cass waggled her eyebrows at him, uncowed.

“You’re welcome,” Veronica said cheerily as she handed him back his antiseptic. After a beat her face broke out into a mischievous grin. “So what’s this I hear about the two of you finally doing—”

“Out,” Arcade ordered, tossing his blood-tinged rag at Boone’s laughing shoulders. “For the record, I hate you all.”

“No,” the Courier said, throwing one arm over his face as he leaned back in his chair. “ _I_ hate all of you. When I’m dead, tell ED-E and Rex they were my favorite of all you ungrateful bastards.”

“You’re not dying!” Arcade insisted. He pulled his well-worn stethoscope, a blood pressure cuff, and a glass thermometer from his bag.

When he placed both hands on the Courier’s bare neck to check his lymph nodes, Cass snickered loudly and Veronica asked, “Should we leave you two alone?”

The murderous look Arcade leveled at them was enough to quell Veronica’s smirk momentarily, but Cass and Boone remained unswayed.

“You sure that’s how you touch all your patients?” Cass asked, making what was no doubt an incredibly rude gesture in his peripheral vision.

“No, he wasn’t that easy with me when that Fiend got me in the shoulder over in Westside,” Boone agreed.

Arcade cleared his throat, shooting a pointed look at the Courier, who chuckled weakly, the traitor.

When Veronica began to suggest where else Arcade would prefer to put his hands, he started to loudly recite his observations, like a Pre-War doctor speaking into a dictaphone. “Physical examination reveals the patient to be in minor distress, only moderately responsive to questioning. There is limited adenopathy in the neck, without any further sign of infection.”

“—hope they leave the kitchen for the prosta—”

“There is no JVD or carotid bruit. The lungs are clear to percussion and auscultation. Heart rate is 94 beats per minute—”

“—turn his head and cough—”

“S1 and S2 are within normal limits. The upper and lower extremities are without evidence of edema. Temperature is 99.1, down 1.4 degrees from measurement taken one half hour prior.”

“Need me to open my mouth and say ‘ahh’?” the Courier said, still chuckling.

“No,” Arcade rolled his eyes. “What I need is for you to stop laughing, and for our audience to. Exit. The. Room.”

“Oh, I bet you do.” He didn’t need to turn around to know that Cass was leering at them obscenely.

Arcade sighed long-sufferingly and the Courier held out his arm to have his blood pressure taken. For one peaceful moment, the only sound in the room was the puffing of the cuff as it inflated. He glanced at the Courier’s face for any sign of discomfort and they held each other’s gaze for a moment. The grin the Courier had for him was tired and dopey, but openly affectionate.

“Aww,” Veronica began, only to be cut off by the crunch of velcro.

“117/78,” Arcade pronounced, squeezing the Courier’s shoulder once and dropping the cuff and his stethoscope on the table with a clunk. “You’ll be fine.” He left a stimpak by the Courier’s elbow just in case, next to the mostly empty bottle of water Cass had set down.

He paused in the doorway, looking back at Cass, Boone, and Veronica placidly. “Thanks for offering to clean up.”

Arcade was sure he could feel Julie Farkas’ disapproving gaze on the back of his neck all the way from Freeside, chiding him on the importance of ensuring his patient understood his diagnosis and the need for follow-up and self-care and and and...But really all the Courier needed at the moment was to finish his water and crawl into bed. They had managed to escape from Vault 22 without a hint of respiratory infection to be found, meaning that their immediate futures were unlikely to be green and leafy. Surely their friends could handle bustling the Courier off to sleep without any additional inappropriate running commentary. And, given that he had suffered through their endless digs at his personal life with grace and a minimum of scathing retorts, he figured he had earned his time alone. This must be what personal growth felt like.

Arcade hustled into the suite’s bathroom, sighing at Raul where he leaned in the hallway with a knowing grin on his face. He shut the wooden door heavily behind him, more than eager to get away from their collective needling and wash the grime of nearly a week’s worth of travel and fighting—and one memorable occasion of fucking—from his skin.

He pulled the curtain shut behind him in the first bathroom stall, metal rings screeching against the rod. That was the last sound he heard other than the rush of hot water for a blissfully long while.

________________________________________

A short time later Arcade settled down in the rec room, claiming the sofa in the back corner behind the pool table for himself. None of the Courier’s other companions had come near him since he had finished his makeshift surgery in the kitchen, other than Veronica to say that the Courier had put himself to bed, and that Cass and Boone had roped Raul into helping them clear off and sanitize the kitchen table. They had even dutifully returned Arcade’s medical kit to its proper place by his bed in the guest suite.

She had also wanted him to know that all teasing aside, she thought that both he and the Courier deserved to be happy.

Arcade had nodded quickly, not having the words to say that thus far he and the Courier had shared only one instance of passion and a mutual attraction that could be most accurately described as ‘slightly more open.’ They weren’t exactly holding hands and skipping into the Mojave sunset. Cursing at each other as they stumbled into a nest of cazadores certainly didn’t ring ‘happy couple’ to him.

Still, he wasn’t about to burst Veronica’s bubble, as earnest as the soft smile on her face had been. It wasn’t as if they _weren’t_ happy together; it was that they were not yet happy _together_. In between ensuring Keely’s safe return to Camp McCarran and gallivanting back through the most Fiend-infested part of the Wastes in apparent search of cazadores to be savaged by, they just hadn’t negotiated the subject yet. Acknowledged mutual attraction was on the table, but what—if anything—else might also be remained a mystery. Even so, Arcade was grateful to be home, for the Courier to be relatively safe and healthy, and, most especially, to be wearing clean clothes again.

He dragged the nearby armchair over in front of the couch to serve as a footrest and tucked into his relatively undamaged Latin copy of Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_. It had been a favorite of his for as long as he could remember, a faraway time where he would close his eyes and pretend the sting of sand on his cheeks was salt spray dashing up against the bow of the _Argo_ or whistle of the desert wind one of Orpheus’ own haunting melodies.

Arcade was just getting to Minerva’s meeting with the Muses when the Courier appeared in the doorway, looking washed and clean-shaven, though utterly drained. Arcade said nothing, merely turning his page as the Courier sank down into the couch two cushions away, a full bottle of purified water in his hands. He looked slightly pinched—as he was coming down off of the cazador venom, his head likely ached worse than an Atomic Wrangler hangover—but his color was less sallow and his dark eyes clearer than they had been when he was dragged bodily into the building a few hours ago. Arcade wet his index finger on the tip of his tongue to flip another page, glancing sideways at the Courier as he took several large gulps of water. He had just about resolved that they would continue to sit there, two feet between them and silent, when the Courier placed his bottle of water on the floor and curled up on the couch, depositing his head unceremoniously in Arcade’s lap.

“’m in pain,” he said, his eyes shut.

“You are a pain,” Arcade said with less annoyance than he intended.

He looked bemusedly at the Courier resting against his legs. Since their ill-timed encounter in the depths of Vault 22, the Courier had become decidedly more tactile with Arcade: bumping shoulders with him as they exited the main gate of Camp McCarran, placing a palm in between his shoulder blades as he pointed out the shimmering of metal Fiend armor glinting on the horizon, brushing their hands together as they passed a canteen back and forth. But this display of casual intimacy was novel; surely none of the violent gang members or Legionaries who had faced down the Courier in the past would ever suspect him of being a cuddler. Still, he remembered the Courier grumbling when Arcade had shoved him off of the Overseer’s desk after being forced to endure a few too many minutes of moist and mud-covered snuggling. At the time he had ascribed that complaint to a desire for a repeat performance, rather than an actual affection for, well, affection.

Unexpected as this development might be, Arcade wasn’t interested in pushing the Courier to the floor this time. He could do cuddling. Probably.

Arcade flashed a fond smile down at the Courier and began to run a hand through his hair. It was softer than it looked when clean. The Courier sighed, settling bonelessly into the couch; this was clearly what he was aiming for when he laid down. So as not to let him completely off the hook, Arcade added, “For the record, you are a horrible patient.”

The Courier grinned broadly, dark eyes bright. “I’m sure you’ve had worse, Doc.”

“Hmm,” Arcade said vaguely, letting the Courier believe he was thinking on it. He’d shoved belt straps between the clenched teeth of convulsing junkies overdosed on half a dozen different chems, scraped splinters of glass and flecks of corroded metal out of the wounds of patrolling NCR soldiers jumped in the night, ministered cautiously to women and children sporting cruel injuries that they couldn’t quite explain under the gaze of husbands, fathers, and that was just since his stint in the Mormon Fort in Freeside. Arcade has performed true surgeries before, with higher stakes and fewer supplies, has gone to sleep haunted by screams and worse, the silence of a person flatlining. He’s had much worse than the Courier.

He hummed again as if still contemplating and the Courier hummed back, content to lie here and have Arcade rub his aching head. If this was all the treatment the Courier required, he was an easy patient indeed.

This arrangement worked fine until Arcade had to turn another page in his book. “Here,” he said, gently nudging the Courier to hold the book open for him, propped up on Arcade’s knees. The Courier took it accommodatingly, gingerly rolling onto his side so they could scan the lines of Latin together. Arcade waited patiently as the Courier settled, trying to find the position that would pull the least on his stitches.

“You can’t understand any of this, can you?” Arcade asked after a few more paragraphs, where a contest had developed on Mount Helicon.

“Sure I can,” the Courier said. Arcade couldn’t see his smile as much as he could feel it against his legs. “I’m one of those Frumentarii couriers secretly working for Caesar.” He exaggerated the long ‘e’ sound at the beginning of the name, dragging it out like ‘sea.’ “Don’t tell Boone,” he stage whispered.

Arcade snorted and shook his head. “You put on a very convincing show of believing in the NCR for a Frumentarius.”

“I’m a good spy,” the Courier replied, twisting his head to wink at Arcade.

He allowed Arcade a few more silent minutes to read—Calliope was singing of Cupid now—before he asked, “Did you know some Mojave Express outposts only hire couriers who can’t read?”

Arcade paused in combing through his hair, abandoning the story of Dis easily. “No, I didn’t. To be completely honest, I hadn’t had many dealings with the Mojave Express before you strolled into the Fort. What use would an illiterate courier be?”

“Plenty,” the Courier said, stifling a yawn. “It’s to guarantee more secure correspondence. Can’t read it, can’t intercept it. From what I understand, their recipients are usually designated as places rather than people, or if they are people, they’re given a drawing of ‘em as confirmation. Can’t just use dropboxes with them. I met one once out the Hub way. Name was Harvey; real nice guy,” he smiled distantly, tapping a finger against the page of the book. “Kinda dull though.”

Arcade took the _Metamorphoses_ from the Courier and set it down on the arm of the couch, considering his options. Neither of them had been particularly forthcoming with their personal histories to this point; Arcade had largely assumed that the Courier’s run-in with Benny in Goodsprings had left the memories of his life pre-Mojave rather hazy. The Courier rolled over to look up at Arcade, expression briefly pulled taut as his stitches protested the movement.

“Have you ever read any of the letters you had to deliver?” Arcade asked. It felt like a safer question than ‘Why don’t I know anything about who you were before we met?’—a much less blatantly hypocritical one as well.

The Courier shrugged, wincing slightly at the motion. “Sure. The Platinum Chip’s not the first delivery that’s nearly gotten me killed, it’s just the one that came closest to doin’ the job.” He hesitated, rubbing at his chin, eyes slightly distant as if he were literally looking into the past. “Had one job that once sent me down to New Reno, through the Den and Redding. I was still pretty green at that point, and I walked straight into a gang depot without knowing any better. They shot my hat right off my head.” He ruffled his own dark hair as if he were reaching for that lost hat. Arcade stifled a smile, not wanting to interrupt the Courier’s reminiscence.

“I turned tail and ran—luckily the Mordinos weren’t the only powerful family in town and the others didn’t take too kindly to them shooting blindly in the streets—then tore open the letter as soon as I was safe. Turns out the sender had tried to hedge his own corner of the jet trade, and had run off with the boss’ son to boot. Dear old dad wanted blood to settle the debt and tried to make me a part of it. Whatever happened to ‘don’t shoot the messenger’?” The Courier chuckled. “Not all of my deliveries were letters, though, and not all were dangerous. Most were just a lot of wearing out your boots and not coming down with sun poisoning. Kinda like what we’re still doing but with added Legion assassins.”

“Why work for the Mojave Express?” Arcade asked, starting to card his fingers through the Courier’s hair again. “I’ve seen you at a computer terminal, or working on a Protectron. You’ve rebuilt guns from scraps. Hell, you can practically hold entire conversations with ED-E. Surely a job as a mechanic or an engineer would be far less hazardous to your health and your footwear.”

The Courier smiled tightly—it didn’t quite reach his eyes—and he shrugged, too quick to be casual. “I’ve always liked to travel. And who knows, Doc, maybe I like the danger.”

Arcade didn’t pry. Deflection and pithy sarcasm had been his watchwords for decades; he could recognize when a casual inquiry struck too close to home. Instead he chuckled, knocking his knuckles gently against the Courier’s head. “That would certainly explain a significant portion of your behavior until this point.”

They let the conversation trail off into comfortable silence for a while, the Courier holding the book open while Arcade ran his fingers through the Courier’s hair with his left hand, his right sprawled across the Courier’s heart, carefully avoiding pressing down on the stitches he had made. Minerva left the Muses, content in how they had bested the nymphs on Helicon, and sought out Arachne, a challenge of her own.

Eventually, when the weaver was just about to be turned into a spider, the Courier craned his neck to look up at Arcade and cleared his throat. “I thought you would have asked me more about Zion by now.”

Arcade hesitated in brushing the hair back from the Courier’s face, then dropped his hand to the arm of the sofa. The Courier visibly squared up as if preparing for a dressing down, but did not rise from his place on Arcade’s lap.

“It’s not that I’m not interested in knowing what happened to you out there, because I certainly am. You were gone for the better part of two months, and clearly you were involved in something significant or you wouldn’t keep making oblique references to your trip. But,” Arcade sighed, and adjusted his glasses, weighing his words. He couldn’t very well expect his newfound companions to casually justify their pasts and their present actions when he dodged every personal question pointed toward him more complex than ‘how are you.’ “I’m not going to be that person who demands answers from you, no matter how curious I may be.”

He paused for a beat, the Courier’s face still wooden, unreadable. “Prior complaints about trips into the heart of Caesar’s base of operations notwithstanding.”

The Courier let out the breath he’d been holding, relief clear on his face. “Well, I think you had a right to be worried about that one, Doc.”

“All that I ask is a little forewarning. Coming around to an omnicidal megalomaniac’s way of thinking takes time, after all.”

The Courier chuckled, “Yeah, right.” He cleared his throat and patted the back of Arcade’s hand where it rested on his chest. “Thanks, though.”

Arcade shrugged. “I’m not about to ask anything of you that I wouldn’t expect for myself. Not prying blindly into each other’s psyches seems like an easy enough deal to make.”

A prickle ran up Arcade’s spine as the Courier looked him in the eye; it felt like he was reading him as easily as Arcade read Ovid, seeing the lines of his past written across his face in the red, white, and blue of the Old World flag. The feeling was gone a moment later, however, when the Courier smiled lazily and leaned back, sprawled completely in Arcade’s lap.

He shot him what he clearly believed to be his most charming smile. “So, Doc…I believe I remember you promising me something about a thorough checkup.”

Arcade raised his eyebrows incredulously.

The Courier’s grin did not dim as he waggled his own suggestively.

“I put twenty-six stitches in you barely four hours ago,” Arcade said, taking in the weary set of the Courier’s shoulders, the creases at the corners of his eyes that tightened when he moved indelicately, all belying his apparent eagerness.

“And you did a great job,” the Courier agreed. “Might not even scar.”

“Oh, you’ll definitely scar.” Arcade grabbed his book from where it had slid between the arm of the couch and the seat cushion, making a show of opening to the page where he had left off.

“C’mon, Doc,” the Courier said, tapping him a few times in the stomach.

“No.”

The Courier sighed heavily, wriggling his shoulders against Arcade’s leg. “Has anyone ever told you you’re no fun?”

“Yes, repeatedly,” Arcade turned another page, even though he wouldn’t be able to say exactly who was currently declaiming about lyres, queens, and daughters if Raul had bet him 200 caps on a name. “I admitted as much in the Mormon Fort. In fact, Cass has told me that every day since we met.”

“Knew I liked her for a reason.”

“Then go bother her.” Arcade lifted the book closer to his face than was strictly necessary, trying to block out the sight of the Courier’s wide grin.

“I’d rather stay right here,” the Courier said, drawing one hand up behind his head on Arcade’s lap, his legs crossed at his ankles.

Arcade rolled his eyes indulgently, trying to use Ovid to hide his own smile now. Their teasing back and forth was old hat, a familiar routine within the first month of knowing each other, but the continued openness of their affection was still delightfully new. It settled warmly in Arcade’s ribs. “If I’m going to be getting reacquainted with your chest, I would prefer not to be repairing popped stitches.”

The Courier sighed heavily, as though longsuffering. He shivered when Arcade dropped one hand from the book, fingertips skittering across his chest in teasing swirls, avoiding the injured areas.

The Courier swallowed audibly, then grabbed at Arcade’s hand. “That’s not playin’ fair, Doc.”

“Are we going to have to deal with you two playing cute all the damn time now?” Cass stood in the doorway to the rec room, arms crossed. Arcade and the Courier looked up quickly, but didn’t let go of each other’s hand.

“And just think, you were reveling in this a few short hours ago,” Arcade said, feeling a sharp twist of delight in the way Cass grimaced.

“Doc,” the Courier drawled, pulling on Arcade’s shirt sleeve. “I think Cass needs a pair ‘a glasses. She can’t see that I was always this cute.”

Cass snorted as she fished two solids and a stripe from a corner pocket of the pool table. “Raul and I were going to play, so you two just keep your hands where I can see them.”

“Don’t worry, Cass,” the Courier said with an overwrought sigh. “I’m not allowed to have any fun. Doctor’s orders.” He sat up slowly, stretching his shoulders and arms gingerly, as if he had taken Arcade’s warning about popped stitches seriously. He bumped his shoulder against Arcade’s. “But I can play pool, can’t I, Doc?”

Arcade smiled dryly, turning back to his book. “Try to limit your trick shots.”

And with that, he settled back into Ovid, where it would seem that another mortal queen had yet to learn the risks of spurning the gods. The Courier paused once in racking the balls on the table to wink at him. Somehow, despite the rec room seeing nothing louder than the crash of the cue against stripes and solids and a few weak protests against the placement of scratches for the next few hours, Arcade didn’t manage to do much reading for the rest of the evening.

________________________________________

Just over a week later found Arcade spending the afternoon alone on a couch in the Lucky 38’s cocktail lounge, reveling in both the silence and the slowly fading sunlight that filtered through its windowed exterior. He had positioned himself on one of his favorite pair of couches, directly behind the elevator doors, where no one could see him unless they took a turn all the way around the circular room.

He toyed idly with the top corner of his book— _Metamorphoses_ still, nearly finished. He hadn’t forgotten, precisely, that Ovid concluded his account of Roman history with a tract on the greatness of the Caesar of ages past, but he hadn’t taken into account how unpalatable those passages would be to read now. ‘ _Caesar in urbe sua deus est_ ’: ‘Caesar is a god in his own city.’ Arcade tossed the book down on the wooden coffee table next to his barely touched tumbler of whiskey and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. It was understandable how the gentleman across the river would adopt the name after repeat exposure to such texts, given that historians had so lauded the original.

Arcade took a small sip of his drink and settled deeper into the sofa, unwilling to consider his otherwise pleasant afternoon soured. The week had been long since he had dragged the Courier in from the Wastes, delirious and bleeding. Arcade had filled his time with protracted shifts at the Mormon Fort, needed to actually pitch in a hand rather than to just idly research when impoverished Freeside locals, members of the Kings, and NCR squatters had alternately turned up bloodied and battered. Julie had asked Arcade to talk to the Courier about the growing tensions in Freeside—after all she only held so much personal sway with Major Liz Kieran, and the Followers as a whole seemingly even less with the King.

Arcade had mentioned it to the Courier three days into his recovery, clearing him for an investigation into the trouble in Freeside, but not for any exploration beyond New Vegas’ walls. The Courier had jumped at the chance, loading up his battered survivalist’s rifle and his so-called ‘lucky’ 9mm that he had taken off of Benny, out the door with Rex, ED-E, and vague promises not to take any chances. He had been practically climbing the walls in the 38, idle and frustrated watching first as Boone and Raul skipped out to hunt any Legion patrols that might stray too close to the Strip, then as Veronica and Cass headed out to poke into the recent rash of caravan disappearances.

The fact that Arcade was always exhausted and impatient when returning from a stint at the Fort certainly hadn’t helped either man’s irritability.

But the Courier had gotten to the bottom of the problem—something about the King’s squirrelly second-in-command Pacer agitating the conflict and the Courier talking down everyone involved, as always—and the number of Freesiders seeking medical treatment from the Followers dropped dramatically back to the norm. This morning when he had turned up at the Fort, Julie had mercifully given him the choice of taking another crack at medical research or taking the day off. Arcade had gently declined the former.

He hadn’t truly needed to hide himself away in the cocktail lounge for solitude since he was the only one currently in the 38 except for presumably Mr. House, but he preferred this sunlit level to the windowless suite where they lived. Raul and Boone weren’t expected back from their macabre little trip for at least another day, and Cass and Veronica had reported back yesterday that they would be searching for clues a bit further afield, out past Westside, nearer the road toward Jacobstown. Rex and, thankfully, ED-E rarely bothered him, although Arcade was always willing to offer the dog a hearty scratch behind his ears. The Courier he hadn’t seen since yesterday morning, having gotten in after Arcade last night and out earlier this morning, the dishes by the sink—clean, unlike how Arcade had left them last night—the only indication he’d been here at all.

Arcade was beginning to wonder if he should consider heading out onto the Strip and actually interacting with some other people today when the elevator dinged. He sighed heavily, mentally preparing himself—and that answered that question, he wouldn’t have wanted to go out on the town, after all—when the Courier came striding purposefully around the circular bar.

His face lit up when he saw Arcade. “There you are.” He padded over to the couch hopefully on bare feet, antiseptic, forceps, scissors, and a rag in hand. “I waited ‘til they were pink, closed, and shiny, just like you said.”

Arcade set his drink carefully aside on the low table and sat up, kicking his legs off of the couch. “Let’s see, then.” He patted the cushion next to him. “Take off your shirt.”

The Courier smiled slyly, but did as instructed. “That’s what I like to hear, Doc.”

Arcade released a put-upon sigh, but felt his throat click involuntarily when the Courier’s shirt came off. The Courier hadn’t pressed Arcade since his gentle rejection in the rec room a week ago, but that hadn’t kept either of them from openly looking in the meantime. He was right; the stitches did appear to have done their job. The Courier had three new, proud scars joining the already extensive collection on his tawny chest; he still had some impressive though admittedly fading bruising, but the sutures could certainly come out now.

Arcade glanced about for a moment—the couch would be just as appropriate a place to do this as the bar, which is to say, not at all—before he stood up. “Here, scoot,” he directed, having the Courier lean his back against the arm of the couch while he knelt next to the table.

“This shouldn’t take very long,” he murmured, preparing the forceps and scissors. The Courier nodded, watching Arcade’s hands.

They were both silent as Arcade worked, neither commenting as the rate of the rise and fall of the Courier’s chest picked up, as Arcade trailed his fingertips against the Courier’s skin more often than could be considered strictly coincidental. He removed the sutures from the first two closed wounds easily, skin knit together, warm from the sun and the day’s activity, not infection. The Courier swallowed audibly, made an aborted motion with the arm he had draped over the back of the couch.

Arcade paused, his voice breathier than would ever be appropriate in a normal exam. “Any pain?”

“No,” the Courier’s voice sounded hoarse. He ran one hand up Arcade’s shoulder, coming to rest on the side of his neck. Arcade turned his head, ghosting his breath over the Courier’s palm. Definitely inappropriate.

“Hold still. Just four more to remove.”

The Courier didn’t move an inch.

He stared as Arcade snipped the last suture, muscles quivering when he ran a hand over the Courier’s chest in an examination that could not be considered medical in nature.

“How about that checkup now, Doc?” he asked, wetting his lips.

“No,” Arcade said as he leaned in, “I think you’re fine.”

This kiss was slow, more exploratory now than their first time, as the need was not literally pumping through their circulatory systems. They bumped noses and chuckled, mutually deciding to set Arcade’s glasses aside on the coffee table as he joined the Courier on the couch. He straddled his thighs, consciously keeping his weight off of him. The Courier was hardly a delicate flower, and his injuries had healed up nicely for the most part, but Arcade would be remiss as a doctor if he didn’t take at least a little care here.

The Courier popped open the top several buttons of Arcade’s shirt, breaking their kiss to mouth down his jaw to the skin he had just exposed. Arcade undid the remaining buttons and tossed the shirt somewhere behind him unhurriedly. The Courier rocked forward, moving his arms around Arcade’s back and shifting Arcade’s weight onto himself, pressing kisses down his chest all the while.

“Whoa,” Arcade said, gripping at the Courier’s shoulders. “Stop.”

The Courier pulled back immediately, hands up, concern clear on his face.

“We’re not doing this if you’re going to overexert yourself,” Arcade said sternly, pushing gently on the unbruised parts of the Courier’s chest to get him to relax against the couch again. “Your wounds have scarred nicely—”

“You said I was fine,” the Courier interrupted. Arcade prodded him once in the largest bruise and the Courier grunted, more in surprise than pain.

“—But that doesn’t mean you’re fully healed,” Arcade continued, running a hand over the Courier’s jaw to soothe his tone. “We’re only doing this if you take it easy. Okay?”

The Courier rubbed at where Arcade had jabbed him, but settled against the couch behind him nonetheless. He ran his hands up Arcade’s sides slowly, a warm smile spreading on his face. “Okay,” he said, cupping Arcade’s cheek. “You got it, Doc. We’ll take it easy.”

Arcade returned his soft smile easily, leaning in to kiss him. True to his word, they took it slow, luxuriating in the feel of their mouths against each other’s lips, jaws, necks. The Courier clenched a hand in Arcade’s hair, not quite pulling, when Arcade nipped at a spot just under his right ear. He laughed softly when Arcade shot him a shrewd look; neither of them were likely to forget about that sensitive spot anytime soon.

The Courier ran his hands down Arcade’s back, rough fingernails pricking lightly against his skin. He smirked into their kiss as he groped at Arcade’s ass. “Pants?” he muttered into Arcade’s jaw.

“Pants,” Arcade agreed quickly, rising first to his knees to unbutton himself then flopping backward on the sofa to kick them off. The Courier was just as graceful in Arcade’s peripheral vision, wriggling himself out of his jeans without bothering to get up. Arcade tossed his socks and cotton boxers to the floor; Arcade wasn’t sure if the Courier knew the meaning of the word ‘underwear’ and was therefore ready, naked, and waiting for Arcade when he clambered back over.

“It’s nice to do this somewhere where we won’t roll into something decaying,” Arcade said, drawing the Courier in for another kiss.

“I wouldn’t get used too used to it, Doc,” the Courier replied, sucking at the skin just above Arcade’s clavicle. “There are a lotta places with decaying things out there in the Mojave.”

Arcade shook his head with a laugh and kissed him soundly, the unspoken promise that they’d have more afternoons and nights like this heard loud and clear.

The Courier lifted himself partly off the couch without breaking their kiss, and reached down between the back of the sofa and the cushion. He pulled out a tube and handed it to Arcade with a hopeful look. Lubricant. “Ah,” Arcade said, considering how they could best do this without the Courier taking any accidental elbows to the chest. He narrowed his eyes as he stalled, “Did you plant that here earlier?”

“No,” the Courier chuckled, kissing Arcade once on the cheek. “Had it in the pocket of my jeans. Didn’t want to lay it out with the medical supplies,” he gestured at the scissors and the small pile of removed sutures on the table. “Figured that’d be a bit presumptuous. Don’t worry, Doc,” the Courier said as he nosed at Arcade’s neck. “I’m prepared to lie back and think of the NCR while you do all the hard work.” He grinned at his own lazy pun, but Arcade was still caught on the ‘lying back’ bit of what he said.

“Oh, you weren’t—”

“What?” the Courier asked, brow furrowed.

“It’s just,” Arcade leaned back and took a breath, consciously trying not to come off as too defensive considering he had misinterpreted the Courier’s suggestion in the first place. “I don’t know, I suppose in the past other men have looked at me and seen acerbic, bookish doctor and figured…”

“…He must love getting bent over the nearest flat surface?” the Courier finished, expression unimpressed.

“Right,” Arcade agreed, turning the tube over in his hand. “One delightful gentleman even phrased it almost exactly that way.”

The Courier shrugged easily, running a soothing hand up Arcade’s side. “Truth is, I’ve never really cared much either way. We’ve got time, Doc, and you make me want to do everything with you.”

Arcade let out a slow breath, heart hammering at the earnestness plain on the Courier’s face. “Okay,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to the Courier’s temple as he gently rearranged their limbs on the couch.

The Courier ran his hands over Arcade’s shoulders, up and down, up and down. He grinned and said, “We’ll take it slow, Doc.”

“Okay,” Arcade whispered again before he kissed the Courier, both their hands working between them to twist the tube open.

The sound the Courier made when Arcade reached down to stretch him was half-groan, half-sigh. Arcade paused immediately, eyebrows raised in question. The Courier chuckled and ran a hand down his own chest. “Doc, I am just fine right now. Keep goin’.”

And Arcade did. What came next wasn’t particularly smooth. Obvious mutual attraction and prior experience with other partners could only go so far; a person either knew someone else’s body or they didn’t, although sheer enthusiasm could make up a lot for unfamiliarity, and that they had in spades. The Courier wasn’t vocal, precisely, as most of the things he said weren’t actual words, but he had no hesitation in letting Arcade know how to maneuver and where. For his part, Arcade was dutiful in cataloguing every twist of the Courier against him, the difference between a breath held in discomfort and one taken in anticipation. By the time Arcade was actually inside the Courier, rocking slowly, they were both gasping kisses into each other’s mouths, heads bent together.

The Courier tugged Arcade down against him, one hand seemingly anchored to the back of his head while the other pumped steadily at his own cock. Arcade moved slowly, almost torturously so if the muffled curses the Courier kept repeating were to be believed, relishing the feel of the Courier around him. One indelicate thrust had the Courier groaning into Arcade’s mouth, letting go of his own length to bring both of his arms around Arcade’s neck, just holding on.

Arcade panted into the crook of the Courier’s shoulder, snaking one hand in between them to take care of the Courier’s cock, touch steady and constant, until he bit out a long curse, going slack in Arcade’s arms.

Arcade braced himself against the couch, hips still, elbows locked, taking in the mess on the Courier’s stomach while they both tried to get their breath back. “Do you need me to pull out?” Arcade asked after a moment.

The Courier pressed a quick kiss to the inside of Arcade’s left elbow. “Yeah,” he said with a nod and he lifted his hips accommodatingly as Arcade leaned back. “C’mere.” He pulled Arcade back in for a kiss and to join Arcade’s own hand on his still-hard cock. They were clumsy, bumping into each other and picking up a rhythm only to lose it again, but Arcade got there soon enough, coming with a gasp on the Courier’s stomach.

They just breathed together for a while, flushed foreheads pressed together. The Courier ran an appreciative hand over Arcade’s shoulder. “Remind me to warn the others not to use this couch.”

Arcade laughed, letting himself rest on top of the Courier, trying to avoid the mess on his stomach as best he could. “Are you alright?” he asked, taking in the Courier’s slightly more labored breathing and the sheen on his face.

“Doc,” the Courier answered with a grin, “I am spectacular.” He pressed a kiss to Arcade’s temple, drawing him further down on top of him with the arm he had around his shoulders.

Arcade traced lightly at a healing scar on the Courier’s chest, pressed a reverent kiss there. Apparently the moment they'd shared had made Arcade sentimental, or perhaps that was just the Courier's effect on him in general, because as he smoothed his hand over the scars he whispered, “ _Iamque opus exegi, quod nec Iovis ira nec ignis nec poterit ferrum nec edax abolere vetustas_.”

“Come on, Arcade,” the Courier chided, brushing back a stray hair from his forehead. “You can’t just talk dirty to me in Latin and not tell me what you said.”

Arcade smiled and nodded his head toward the discarded book on the table. “It’s from Ovid. I’m afraid classical purists would be horrified to know I compared you,” he traced the red scars on the Courier’s chest again, “to a work with such historical significance.”

The Courier grinned broadly, his smile lopsided in the way it got when he received a compliment he hadn’t expected. “What’s it mean?”

“‘And now the work is done,’” Arcade murmured, running his palm over the Courier’s chest. “‘That Jupiter’s anger, fire or sword cannot erase, nor the gnawing tooth of time.’”

The Courier paused, swallowing visibly, and gently knocked his knuckles against Arcade’s temple. “No kidding,” he said softly.

They lay there for a moment, the Courier running one hand through Arcade’s hair, the sweat between them just beginning to become uncomfortably cool. He gestured at the rag he brought with the medical supplies. “Can you grab that?”

Arcade winced—he used that to wipe his hands after procedures. Granted, he washed it thoroughly in between uses, but it still seemed perverse.

“Hey,” the Courier said, tapping him on the arm. “The last bodily fluids you mopped up with one of those were mine too.”

Arcade rolled his eyes and levered himself off the couch, scooping up the rag to wipe them both down. He dropped the cloth back to the table in distaste—well away from his book—and began to retrieve his clothes from their various locations on the brightly patterned carpet.

“Hey,” the Courier said. If Arcade didn’t know any better, he would say the Courier sounded self-conscious. “You leaving?”

“No,” Arcade said, pausing in doing up his pants to gesture again at Ovid lying abandoned on the table. “I was here first, remember? It’s just with all the windows it gets a little brisk in here after the sun sets.”

“Oh,” the Courier said, a dopey smile returning to his face. He stretched out a demanding hand in the direction of his discarded jeans. When Arcade shot him an unimpressed look—they were only three feet away, dumped on the other couch—he said, “I’m in recovery. _You_ said to take it easy.”

Arcade shook his head and tossed him his jeans and t-shirt. The jeans he wriggled on just as he had taken them off, not getting up from his lying position; the shirt he draped over the back of the couch. He stretched out his arm, scooting to make as much room as possible, inviting Arcade back over.

Arcade switched on the two nearest table lamps before he joined him, the top three buttons of his shirt unfastened as he settled against the Courier. He could definitely do cuddling.

The Courier nosed against Arcade’s neck and they traded a couple of tentative, unhurried kisses, Arcade’s hand gently trailing along the Courier’s chest. This was…nice. There was no other word for it, except perhaps comfortable. Arcade couldn’t remember the last time he had shared this degree of uncomplicated ease with another person, not in this way. He and Julie understood each other, and Daisy knew him better than anyone alive or dead, but it would do both women a disservice to try to compare and contrast them; romantic relationships weren’t inherently superior to friendly or familial ones, no matter what still-lingering Pre-War popular fiction may suggest.

But in terms of romantic dalliances, this was different. This was warm, like the barest beginnings of the Mojave sunrise, before it rose properly and turned blistering. Not that his relationship with the Courier didn’t also have its blistering moments; two stubborn people with firm ideals couldn’t be counted on to agree all the time. But their newfound closeness was unlike anything he had shared with lovers past whose relationships had always had an expiration date, where he never felt like he could fully explain who he was.

That wasn’t to say Arcade was suddenly about to break out the Enclave propaganda in the afterglow. It was just that it was nice, really, to believe that maybe he could have that option of explaining himself, his history, in the future. That they both seemed to want a future, where they could learn about each other mind and body, at all.

The Courier broke through Arcade’s musings with a soft hand on his stomach. “So, Doc,” he said slowly, a hint of a grin on his lips. “I assume you are familiar with the signs of Psycho addiction.”

Arcade shot him a skeptical look at this segue. “…Yes? Considering picking up a new habit?”

“Nah,” he waved the arm he had around Arcade’s shoulders carelessly, his voiced pitched a little bit too high, the cadence slightly stitled. “It’s just that what would you guess is the first thing I see after I leave Freeside and head up to the Northern Passage to sign on for the Happy Trails Caravan Expedition? One of the other guys Jed Masterson brought on for the Zion trip standing there all jittery, eyes practically bugging out of his head.”

Arcade settled back against the Courier’s arm, giving him a searching look. When his forced smile didn’t dim, Arcade chose to keep his own tone light. If the Courier had decided to open up to him despite his obvious hesitations, he’d follow his lead. “What an auspicious way to begin a trip.”

“Yeah,” the Courier snorted, visibly relaxing, but not completely. “Exactly.” He tapped at Arcade’s shoulder contemplatively. “You know, now that I think about it, Ricky was actually wearing a Vault 22 jumpsuit, too.”

Arcade shot him an unimpressed look. “Now you’re just messing with me.”

“No way, Doc, hand on my heart, he really was.”

And they stayed like that for the next few hours, the Courier’s soft rumble and the slide of their bare feet against leather the only sounds to fill the lounge. Ovid and all his praise for Caesar lay forgotten on the table in the face of other histories to share.

**Author's Note:**

> You can read the full text of Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ at the link below, in either English or Latin.  
>  http://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph15.htm
> 
> A kind commenter asked for an elaboration of Arcade’s promise to give the Courier a thorough checkup at a later date here: http://falloutkinkmeme.livejournal.com/6099.html?thread=15390675#t15390675


End file.
